• The Big Red Kidney Bus, a mobile dialysis unit which visits holiday spots across Victoria hopes to expand, after giving more than 300 dialysis patients and their families the freedom to travel in its first year of operation.

• A team of Australian and international researchers have discovered how the use of nanomedicine could make it easier to detect cancer, deliver drugs to tumours and arm surgeons with greater accuracy when operating.

News on Health Professional Radio. Today is the 12th January 2016. Read by Rebecca Foster. Health News

“We desperately need skin to be able to treat burns. We’re coming into bushfire season and that’s always a critical time for us.”

Kate Sanderson was racing in an ultra-marathon in Western Australia’s Kimberley four years ago when she received burns to 65 per cent of her body after becoming caught in a fire.

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Ms Sanderson spent six months in hospital in Melbourne where she received dozens of life-saving skin grafts.

There was enough skin in Victoria to treat her burns, but fellow runner Turia Pitt was less fortunate.

Her doctors in NSW were forced to import skin from the USA which was then held up at the airport — putting her life at risk due to infection.

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According to 2014 figures … only 165 people donated skin in Australia.

The Tissue Bank said they frequently ran out of skin.

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Human skin, which is the best option for seriously burnt patients because synthetic tissue has no resistance to bacteria, is retrieved after a person has died and often it is the family who decides whether to donate.

Burns surgeon Heather Cleland said many people were reluctant to tick the box for skin donation because they thought they would be stripped of their skin.

She said donating involved removing a small patch of skin from the back and upper legs.

A team of Australian and international researchers have discovered how the use of nanomedicine could make it easier to detect cancer, deliver drugs to tumours and arm surgeons with greater accuracy when operating.

The use of nanocrystals offers clearer images of cancer cells, which helps to improve surgical procedures, but the targeted approach can also speed up the recovery time for patients.

A benefit of the technology is that a patient can swallow a magnetised nanocrystal, a tiny microscopic ball that can be filled with a drug, and a magnetic resonance scanner can then be used to direct the nanocrystals to a tumour.

After that an energy source, such as an ultrasound, can be used to break open the nanocrystal to release the drug so it can treat the cancer.

Unlike conventional chemotherapy, which spreads widely through[out] the body and damages healthy parts, ingesting the nanocrystal reduces leaching of the drug throughout the body and reduces the side effects.

When a person is diagnosed with cancer, a biopsy of a cell or tissue is needed to detect the disease.

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The hope behind this research is that the highly sensitive nanotechnology could be applied to diagnose cancer through blood, urine or saliva – a much less painful and invasive procedure for the patient.

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Professor Dayong Jin from the University of Technology in Sydney said one significant benefit of nanotechnology was the ability to produce clearer imaging in surgery to allow greater accuracy on the operating table.

At present surgeons operating on patients tend to cut out more than just the tumour, to prevent the recurrence of cancer.

“But at the same time, once you cut more normal cells, you significantly affect the patient’s immune system,” Professor Jin said.

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Professor Jin described the use of bodily fluids to carry the molecular drugs as a liquid gold opportunity.

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The researchers – including a student from Macquarie University … – now plan to work with medical teams to roll out the technology on a wider scale.

The team’s paper has been published in the Journal Nature Communications.

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